Decoding developmental differences and individual variability in response inhibition through predictive analyses across individuals
Jessica R. Cohen
1*,
Robert F. Asarnow
2,
Fred W. Sabb
2,3,
Robert M. Bilder
1,2,3,
Susan Y. Bookheimer
1,2,3,
Barbara J. Knowlton
1,3 and
Russell A. Poldrack
1,2,3
- 1
Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- 2
Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- 3
Brain Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Response inhibition is thought to improve throughout childhood and into adulthood. Despite the relationship between age and the ability to stop ongoing behavior, questions remain regarding whether these age-related changes reflect improvements in response inhibition or in other factors that contribute to response performance variability. Functional neuroimaging data shows age-related changes in neural activity during response inhibition. While traditional methods of exploring neuroimaging data are limited to determining correlational relationships, newer methods can determine predictability and can begin to answer these questions. Therefore, the goal of the current study was to determine which aspects of neural function predict individual differences in age, inhibitory function, response speed, and response time variability. We administered a stop-signal task requiring rapid inhibition of ongoing motor responses to healthy participants aged 9–30. We conducted a standard analysis using GLM and a predictive analysis using high-dimensional regression methods. During successful response inhibition we found regions typically involved in motor control, such as the ACC and striatum, that were correlated with either age, response inhibition (as indexed by stop-signal reaction time; SSRT), response speed, or response time variability. However, when examining which variables neural data could predict, we found that age and SSRT, but not speed or variability of response execution, were predicted by neural activity during successful response inhibition. This predictive relationship provides novel evidence that developmental differences and individual differences in response inhibition are related specifically to inhibitory processes. More generally, this study demonstrates a new approach to identifying the neurocognitive bases of individual differences.
Keywords:
development, predictive analysis, fMRI, response inhibition, stop-signal
Citation:
Cohen JR, Asarnow RF, Sabb FW, Bilder RM, Bookheimer SY, Knowlton BJ and Poldrack RA (2010) Decoding developmental differences and individual variability in response inhibition through predictive analyses across individuals. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 4:47. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2010.00047
Received: 20 December 2009;
Paper pending published: 03 February 2010;
Accepted: 05 May 2010;
Published online: 02 July 2010
Edited by:
Silvia A. Bunge, University of California Berkeley, USA
Reviewed by:
John-Dylan Haynes, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Germany
Luiz Pessoa, Indiana University, USA
Copyright:
© 2010 Cohen, Asarnow, Sabb, Bilder, Bookheimer, Knowlton and Poldrack. This is an open-access article subject to an exclusive license agreement between the authors and the Frontiers Research Foundation, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited.
*Correspondence:
Jessica R. Cohen, Department of Psychology, University of California Los Angeles, 1285 Franz Hall Box 951563, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. e-mail: jrcohen@psych.ucla.edu